Thanks for waiting so patiently, here is part 2, I hope you all like it.

Thanks as always to CH for creating the characters we get to play with, and thanks to everyone who reviewed. I tried to get back to all of them, but if I missed some, I am sincerely sorry.

Merick

Part 2

It has been a long time since I have seen the sun rise, but I know its pull to rest, because as a vampire I feel it to my very core. The desperate draw to fatigue, it is pulling at me. The instinct to hide, to go to ground, to find a sleeping spot, is no more or less powerful than the instinct of a lioness to hunt or a mother to nurture. But this day I fight it. I have perhaps twenty minutes left to me; the sun rises slowly in this place. I can hear the birds beginning to waken, their tiny voices filling the void left by the night creatures, among which I count myself. There is that brief few moments of silence, when the whole world just seems to pause in quiet and then reset itself to brightness and life.

The grass is wet with dew where I sit, and it soaks through my clothing rather quickly, but it will keep the fire from the property I surmise and I do not let it bother me for long. It is a minor discomfort compared to what my own mind has been doing to me for so many months past, and it really is the last thing I should be thinking of in the moments before my final death. I do not hope for something majestic to pop into my head, some prayer to offer the universe, some final parting words of deep wisdom. I don't have any wisdom to offer, or hardly any advice, except that I caution people not to do as I have done, and not to betray innocence and love.

I can feel the warmth beginning on my skin and I close my eyes to let it take me. The sounds of the birds are rejuvenating to me, but the sounds of the screaming are not, and are also totally unexpected. My eyes snap open and my head turns to their source, a path I have not taken in a great long time. The path through the cemetery, the path back to Adele Stackhouse's home, Sookie's home, my love's home. Though the sky grows even brighter I cannot help but leap to my feet, the urge to resist the light dispelled in the instant of the voice reaching my ears, and I run, I run the path at the speed my maker gave me emerging into the clearing at the end of the long driveway to see her, and to see him.

I don't know either or them, not by sight, not by scent, not even by reputation, but I do not need to know them to see that his arms are around her throat, and that he is dragging her, quite obviously against her will back to Sookie's porch. I am not a telepath, so I cannot say what his ultimate goal for her is, but I can say that he is twice her size, and that she is terrified and that I fear for her life, if not simply for the invasion of her body. I can not let such a crime occur on the property, whatever the memories I have left Sookie with here I will not add to the distaste that keeps her away by allowing her tenant, (for I assume that Sookie would never have rented her home, her grandmother's home to a brut such as the one I see before me,) to be violated, harmed or killed.

In an instant I had him by the shoulders, and I broke both with simply the power of my hands. His grip on her lost, and the screams now reaching his lips he turned on me, quite uselessly. The rage in his face is not unfamiliar to me, I have seen those high on Vampire Blood before. I let my fangs run out, hoping he will simply run from me, but he does not, in fact he charges at me, easily enough dodged as he piles into the gravel of the driveway, quite off balance. I take the opportunity to grab up the girl and rush her to the porch. The sun is nearly up and I do not want anyone to witness my destruction; not the girl, whose safety I wish to ensure, nor the man, who might go after her again if I were to suddenly be unable to help her.

"Get inside and call the sheriff." I urge her, turning my face back to the man in the driveway who is struggling to right himself, his face bloody and torn by the rocks.

"I can't." She shrieks, in total panic, "I've dropped my keys, I don't know where they are."

I do not wish to break the lock on the door, it will only make it simpler for the man to gain access and I am running out of time. A quick scan of the empty driveway brings them to my attention, by her discarded purse. I race to them and toss the shinning mass to land at her feet. She kneels, and begins to feel the wooden slats around herself with her hands, and only then do I realize that she did not know where they were, because she cannot see. I turn on my prey who continues to yell obscenities, now understanding that the girl would not know a further crime from me against him and so I bring both hands down on the back of his head, knocking the sense from him completely, but not quite killing him. The blow will give us enough time, I reason, for Andy to come out and remove him before he wakes. I return to the porch, sweep up the keys, and place them safely in the waiting hands that somehow seem to know of my return.

"Go inside, please, call the sheriff." I urge her again; I can hear the panic in my own voice now, of my carefully laid plans.

"Please come with me." Her unseeing eyes turned to my face.

"Please, don't invite me in." I beg her. There is blood in the air and the hunger and the sense of self-preservation is becoming too strong. And I know I am losing my nerve, being here.

"Why not?"

"I am a vampire miss, you must turn me away." I hope the words will frighten her enough that she will want to hide from me. But they do not.

"It's nearly day, you have to come in or you will die." Her face is beginning to look frantic.

"I mean to die today." I step back from her as her empty hand reaches for me.

"You saved my life, please, you must let me save yours."

"I am not worth saving." I turn.

"You are to me. Besides, if he wakes up he will kill me. Please don't leave me alone." Her hand lights on my shoulder, and she tugs at me frantically, not that she can move me, I am a rock, albeit, one that is crumbling from the inside. I cannot do it, I don't have the strength, I thought I did, but it is yet another thing I have failed at.

"Give me the keys." I ask as I turn back to her. I can feel the heat of the emerging daylight on my back. I cannot self-immolate on her porch, on Sookie's porch I tell myself, to lend my dead heart some type of justification for what I am about to do. She gives me the ring back and I swiftly open the door and let her drag me inside.

"Is there a safe place for you here?" She asks me as she bolts the door behind us.

"The guest room, as long as Sookie has left the blackout shades there still."

"I wouldn't know." She says with a sad little grin, "everything is blacked out for me. But let us go and find out."

I marvel at the way she maneuvers around the house, amongst the assorted furniture and curios filled with further memories of Sookie and her grandmother. Sookie left so much behind, it pains me to see what I made her give up. My hostess seems to know exactly which room I was referring to because she opens just the right door. The lights are off, but of course they are I remind myself, my hostess has no need of them, much like me. I start when the door swings inward, the room is as I remember it and it still smells like her. I choke back a sob. I can't help myself.

"Are you all right?" My hostess whirls on me, afraid for me. "Are the windows open?"

"No." I whisper, feeling the power drain from my legs as I drop to my knees. The day has risen completely now, it is so hard to fight the desperate need to sleep. I should have been ash by now, it should have been over, but I find myself in my lover's spare room, the room where she made a spot for me to hide, out of misguided love for me. It kills me to be here, and not in the easy sense.

"What do you mean 'no'?" Her voice is as desperate as my need to collapse. "Are the windows open, or are you all right?"

"Neither." I gasp. She falls to the floor beside me, hands reaching out to touch my skin. I don't have the strength to stop her.

"The room is safe for you William?"

How does she know my name, I didn't tell her my name.

"You know me?" I ask.

"You're the solitary vampire who lives on the other side of the cemetery aren't you? William Compton?"

"I am." My voice is getting weak. Her hands have reached my shoulders.

"Some of the town folks mentioned you, when they found out I was renting Sookie's place. They said that I'd probably never see you around. I told them I wouldn't, 'cause I don't see anyone around. I hope they took the joke well."

"You're blind?" I know the answer, but it seems the right thing to say.

"I am, have been for a few years now."

"Will you tell me about it when I wake up?"

"If you like."

"I need to go to the closet, there's a secret room there."

"Sookie told me." Her hands reach my face. They are so soft as they take in the measure of me, and find the tears that I had not been able to stop from coming. "Your face is wet William?"

"Blood tears." I answered, "I'm sorry."

"Why are you crying?" Her innocent question was so charming.

"I will tell you when I wake."

"Of course."

She opened the closet door and I was able to open the concealed trap and slip myself into the earth beneath the house. Just the feel of its damp forced a wave of peace over me. I would not have my true peace, but I would have a measure of it, as best my cowardly heart could muster.

"Please call the sheriff."

"I will."

I let the lid close, to seal me in, the last thoughts in my mind: she called me William, and I had never asked her name.